Current (2017) DACs

[dave2010]

I discovered this now rather old review of Audio Note DACs - http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin...tedac21sig.htm

There is this rather important point

See, if you can't hit a higher level of resolution with your system, quality gear like the Audio Note 2.1 sig DAC will seem like an overpriced piece of witchery. You'll never be able to hear much of a difference between it and a lesser quality piece.

[Ninanina]

I discovered this now rather old review of Audio Note DACs - http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin...tedac21sig.htm

There is this rather important point

I read the whole article Dave and I think you missed the point a bit... further down the review you will find that Scott also says: "I've not heard a better DAC in my system"

I have an older AN Dac, the Dac One 1x Signature, and I love it to bits

[dave2010]

I don't think I missed the point. I realise that he thought the DAC was very good, but he also made it clear that unless the rest of a system was capable of letting the quality shine through, then it wouldn't. Expensive!

[Maouna]

Hi DAVE please checkout the AUSTRALIAN MADE GEISELER KLEIN SE DAC JUST AUDITIONED IT ON MY MERIDIAN 508.24 cdp now my friends this is one GIANT KILLER and it's around $850 Australian dollars ,get onto stereo.net au owners thread and find out what this dac can do. All I can say is you can't go wrong at this amount of money.

[Henchard]

M-Dac+ here.

Excellent for the money. As well as the facilities outlined above can also be used as a headphone amplifier. Can be obtained new for substantially less than RRP if you hunt around.

[RMutt]

I use a Yulong Sabre DA8 DAC. Before that I had a Rega DAC. The Yulong does DSD but there is not much about that appeals to my music taste. The Yulong is fantastic on flac or high resolution signals. It's much more detailed than the Rega. But on MP3 it is nowhere near as good as the Rega which somehow managed to make lower resolution stuff much more listenable. I must admit I didn't know about MQA until the thread about Tidal. When I had a little look into it I found this http://schiit.com/news/news/why-we-w...supporting-mqa which was interesting as Schiit were mentioned in the opening post.The linked piece also makes reference to Sony not releasing much in DSD.

[bbbiker800]

Not sure if Ninanina was referencing this DAC but I had a short demo of the SW1X DAC1 and it was quite obvious it did everything my Audiolab M-DAC doesn't do. So that may be an option. Its superbly built with very quality components and is a NOS DAC.

[struth]

I use a Yulong Sabre DA8 DAC. Before that I had a Rega DAC. The Yulong does DSD but there is not much about that appeals to my music taste. The Yulong is fantastic on flac or high resolution signals. It's much more detailed than the Rega. But on MP3 it is nowhere near as good as the Rega which somehow managed to make lower resolution stuff much more listenable. I must admit I didn't know about MQA until the thread about Tidal. When I had a little look into it I found this http://schiit.com/news/news/why-we-w...supporting-mqa which was interesting as Schiit were mentioned in the opening post.The linked piece also makes reference to Sony not releasing much in DSD.

Dont blame Schiit ...they are not wanting much to get to use the system eh.lol

[jusbe]

It's a shame Monarchy Audio DACs are no longer available, as they are very good. http://www.theabsolutesound.com/arti...lifier/?page=2

Any DAC from Monarchy Audio is worth grabbing. I have two, an M22B and M22C and have yet to hear anything sounding better in my system.

If you just need a basic optical or digital RCA input they won't disappoint. Neither will a Theta, by the way. I got through a few of those too and they deliver fine sound.

Monarchy Audio DACs were made by Lite Audio, and some of these are still around. I have the Lite Audio DAC-83 fed by the LT-1 transport via I2S and it is very good - better than the Marantz CD7 I used to have.

I'd also consider DACs from Audio-gd as well.